Videos tagged “photoresistor”

This is a test prototype for a personal project on which I´m working along with Ingrid Ocana (iamin.com).
The project consist on developing an interactive analog/digital book.
The idea is to create an interactive object based on very simple electronic components. Using basic sensors as the input source of data and attaching some small actuators like little AC motors, LED´s, little speakers, etc...
We are trying to achieve two main objectives with the project, the first one is to make some research into electronics and interaction design. The second one is to search for different ways to "enhance" and re-explore the experience of humans with traditional books with the means of trying to bring people (mainly youth) back to the vast universe of "analog" books instead of just downloading the digital formats.
If you want to see more about the project, the developing process and source code, please visit:
icreate.io/blog/interactive-book

This is a test prototype for a personal project on which I´m working along with Ingrid Ocana (www.iamin.com).
The project consist on developing an interactive analog/digital book.
The idea is to create an interactive object based on very simple electronic components. Using basic sensors as the input source of data and attaching some small actuators like little AC motors, LED´s, little speakers, etc...
We are trying to achieve two main objectives with the project, the first one is to make some research into electronics and interaction design. The second one is to search for different ways to "enhance" and re-explore the experience of humans with traditional books with the means of trying to bring people (mainly youth) back to the vast universe of "analog" books instead of just downloading the digital formats.
If you want to see more about the project, the developing process and source code, please visit:
http://icreate.io/blog/interactive-book

I want to clarify from the outset that this is an ambitious project. Making a watering system that interacts with the environment and autonomously decides if it will irrigate some plants and how long, is not a trivial matter. For this reason, even if the version 1.00 works quite well and it is already operative in my balcony, probably many others will follow soon.
The concept is not far from the project BP0001: watering triggered by the sun and not by clock time, multiple watering zones, same economic 24V AC solenoid valves, same water piping system. But, as you maybe already know, the BP0001 is a good solution only to dab for a short time frame (ex. a holiday). Indeed, the code is too simple, based on the knowledge I had at that time, and the watering system does what it needs to do as long as the environment remains unchanged. But that’s the point, that’s the limitation to overcome, that has become my goal.

What I’m getting ready to explain below, is an original solution I adopted to backlight the thermometer’s project SP0003. Thanks to this, I solved quite easily the main difficulty that consists in generating an even illuminated background to the LCD display using some common LEDs.
At that time, I was also learning how to use the microcontrollers and I wished to make my first real project (and not only on a breadboard) with the PIC16F84A. I programmed the µC for changing the backlight’s brightness according to the room’s light intensity because it could be annoying in the dark, or insufficient in the opposite condition. I also thought that it could be nice switching the LCD backlight colour by pressing a push button.
To complete the project, I inserted a power supply to the thermometer capable of accepting a wide range of DC or AC voltage.
FULL PROJECT ON: http://andy-progetti.com/bi-colour-backlit-lcd-display-s-thermometer-icl7106-pic16f84a/

My first arduino project.
Using 2 photoresistors, the small program/sketch determines if the light source is to the left, centre or right of the board. I used 2 LEDs to display the current state.
My plan is to build an arduino controlled R/C car that follows a strong light source

My first time playing with servo motors! For this experiment I mounted a photoresistor onto the pan-and-tilt setup so it could search for the brightest spot. Once it finishes its "boustrophedonic" search pattern it returns to that spot for five seconds.
A future version might do smaller, local searches after getting through the initial, global search since the sun doesn't move around *that* much!
Source code on GitHub:
https://github.com/danielgm/ServoSunflower

Some years ago I had the opportunity to spend a whole month holiday in Portugal. I didn’t want to ask my friends, or neighbours, to water my plants everyday for me. I thought therefore to build a system for that purpose using the most common microcontroller PIC16F84A.
I thought and tested lots of different solutions in order to find the best one. Reliability was the most important aspect to ensure: a fault could have killed my plants or, worse, flooded my neighbour’s house. Once the system was built, only a few days remained before my departure. So, I set the irrigation timing as best as I could, I asked a friend of mine to go and check once if everything was fine and I left the house crossing my fingers.
FULL PROJECT ON: http://andy-progetti.com/three-ways-automatic-watering-system/